Rapper Booba.
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SADAKA EDMOND / SIPA
Booba has just unveiled "Ratpi World", his cover of "Barbie Girl".
Jul, Ben l'Oncle Soul, P.R2B… Many artists have taken over this hit from the end of the 1990s.
From Booba to Barbie there is only one step, and it has just been taken.
After teasing him for several weeks, the rapper has just unveiled
Ratpi World
, his remix of
Barbie Girl
from the group Aqua (yes, the old thing from the late 1990s).
Far from the acidulous universe of the original, the rapper took it up again by modifying all the lyrics, while keeping the melody.
Thus, on the chorus side, the famous "I'm a Barbie girl, in the Barbie world / Life in plastic, it's fantastic", gives way to "C'est quoi les bails ma gueule j'suis dans mon ratpi world / Automatic weapons are fantastic ”.
Two rooms, two atmospheres.
If Booba surprised his fans with this "cover", he is far from being the first to have rubbed shoulders with this planetary cardboard which marked a whole generation (for good or for bad, we let you decide).
Before him Jul had already reinvented it, but also Ben l'Oncle Soul, P.R2B or Tori V (non-exhaustive list).
"Barbie Girl" in rap
Before B2O, the song of the Scandinavian group had already made a foray into rap in 2016 with
My World
by Jul.
Like Booba, the Marseille rapper had completely rewritten the song, while retaining the melody of the chorus.
In this version, the world of Barbie was then replaced by a dark night-club story: "You are there you make me the killer, you are only a bouncer / There's nothing fantastic, I'm going into Asics ”.
Still in the same musical register, across the Atlantic it is Ludacris who was inspired by the Aqua hit in 2014. In the
Party Girls
feat
with Wiz Khalifa, Cashmere Cat and Jeremih, the latter takes up the melody and modifies a bit the lyrics: "I need party girls in my party world / Tities plastic, ass fantastic".
Another way of looking at it.
"New Star" style
In another galaxy, we also find the version of Ben l'Oncle Soul, which appears in his EP
Soul Wash
in 2009. It is a project exclusively made up of covers including among others
Seven Nation Army
or
I Kissed a Girl
.
All taken up soulful way, obviously.
The result is rather refreshing and reminds us of the
heyday of
Nouvelle Star
when the artists repimped big, somewhat old-fashioned hits.
The first degree team
In the field of the
cover
, some try to adapt the original song to their universe, while others are content to take it almost word for word and note for note.
This is the case of Tori V in 2017 and her avalanche of candy pink, sexist clichés and gender stereotypes, to make her taste.
And it works, at least if we are to believe the more than 200,000 views of the YouTube video.
Barbie takes on patriarchy
To end this little tour of the
Barbie Girl
covers
, let's finish with that of the artist P.R2B who recently brought her a completely different flavor, feminist this time.
She imagines going on a road trip with Barbie, who is fed up with her mental load, and blows up stereotypes.
"Let's trace Barbie, break you forget / Let's trace Barbie, towards the genius", sings P.R2B.
And it should be noted that Barbie has never seemed so fulfilled.
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